10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation

When having conversation with your peers, do you ever think about exactly how you're having the conversation? Not just what you're saying, but how you're saying it? What you're doing while you are having this conversation, or even what you're thinking about while you are conversing. No? Neither do I, but we should. Talking to someone and truly being invested in the conversation is a skill. One that everyone should master, or at least attempt to. 

Most of us know how to talk, we do it every day to anyone around. But then again, most of us struggle with listening. More often than it should be, it is believed that hearing someone talk is the same as listening, and that's just not the case. Understanding someone when they speak, and processing what they say is listening. Hearing is not listening, and listening is just as, if not more important then talking is. So after listening to Celeste Headlee's "10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation" I am left with this:

Because of the recent advances in technology, people have a much more difficult time speaking face to face with someone. At least, doing it correctly. It is so easy to talk to someone over the phone or over email or over text and simply not be invested into the conversation. You don't have to be fully engaged into the conversation at all time, and at any point in the conversation you can just stop replying. So when someone has to have a conversation with someone they're not familiar with face to face, they often do it wrong. Checking their phone, fiddling with their keys, or thinking about how the person's hair just doesn't sit right on their head. All of which prevent this person from truly listening to what the speaker has to say. This is not only extremely rude to the person speaking, but it also limits the potential experience you as a listener can have while in the conversation. Celeste mentions a quote from Bill Nye which goes "Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don't". That in and of itself should be enough to get people to want to learn how to listen. So the next time you meet someone new, and you have the time, stop and listen to someone. Because chances are, what they have to say might actually help you in some way shape or form. But, if it doesn't, if the only thing they talk about it is the history of Bionicles, or what their favorite My Little Pony character is, at least you can walk away from that conversation knowing you practiced your listening skills. So that when you do meet that someone that gives you that one tiny bit of information that changes your whole life for the better, you'll know exactly how to listen to them.